EFTA00316512.pdf

SIEGE Trump Under Fire MICHAEL WOLFF HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY NEW TONN EFTA00316512  Contents AUTHOR'S NOTE XI 1. BULLSEYE 1 2. THE DO-OVER 21 3. LAWYERS 38 4. HOME ALONE 50 5. ROBERT MUELLER 6o 6. MICHAEL COHEN 75 7. THE WOMEN 88 8. MICHAEL FLYNN 99 9. MIDTERMS 113 10. KUSHNER 125 11. HANNITY 1 43 12. TRUMP ABROAD 156 13. TRUMP AND PUTIN 169 EFTA00316513 x CONTENTS 14.100 DAYS 185 15. MANAPORT 196 16. PECKER, COHEN, WEISSELBERG 209 Author's Note 17. MCCAIN, WOODWARD, ANONYMOUS 223 18. KAVANAUGH 234 19. KHASHOGGI 246 20. OCTOBER SURPRISES 257 21. NOVEMBER 6 268 22. SHUTDOWN 282 23. THE WALL 295 Shortly after Donald Trump's inauguration as the forty-fifth president of EPILOGUE: THE REPORT 309 the United States, I was allowed into the West Wing as a sideline observer. My book Fire and Fury was the resulting account of the organizational ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 317 chaos and constant drama—more psychodrama than political drama—of Trump's first seven months in office. Here was a volatile and uncertain INDEX 319 president, releasing, almost on a daily basis, his strange furies on the world, and, at the same time, on his own staff. This first phase of the most abnor- mal White House in American history ended in August 2017. with the departure of chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and the appointment of retired general John Kelly as chief of staff. This new account begins in February 2018 at the outset of Trump's second year in office, with the situation now profoundly altered. The pres- ident's capricious furies have been met by an increasingly organized and methodical institutional response. The wheels of justice are inexorably turning against him. In many ways, his own government, even his own White House, has begun to turn on him. Virtually every power center left of the far-right wing has deemed him unfit. Even some among his own base find him undependable, hopelessly distracted, and in over his head. Never before has a president been under such concerted attack with such a limited capacity to defend himself. His enemies surround him, dedicated to bringing him down. EFTA00316514  XII AUTHOR'S NOTE AUTHOR'S NOTE XIII * * * the voices necessary to tell the larger story I provided anonymity to any source who requested it. In cases where I have been told—on the prom- I am joined in my train-wreck fascination with Trump—that certain ise of no attribution—about an unreported event or private conversation knowledge that in the end he will destroy himself—by, I believe, almost or remark. I have made every effort to confirm it with other sources or everyone who has encountered him since he was elected president. documents. In some cases, I have witnessed the events or conversations To have worked anywhere near him is to be confronted with the most described herein. With regard to the Mueller investigation, the narrative extreme and disorienting behavior possible. That is hardly an overstate- I provide is based on internal documents given to me by sources close to ment. Not only is Trump not like other presidents, he is not like anyone the Office of the Special Counsel. most of us have ever known. Hence, everyone who has been close to him Dealing with sources in the Trump White House has continued to feels compelled to try to explain him and to dine out on his head-smacking offer its own set of unique issues. A basic requirement of working there peculiarities. It is yet one more of his handicaps: all the people around is, surely, the willingness to infinitely rationalize or delegitimize the truth, him, however much they are bound by promises of confidentiality or and, when necessary, to outright lie. In fact, I believe this has caused some nondisclosure agreements or even friendship, cannot stop talking about of the same people who have undermined the public trust to become pri- their experience with him. In this sense, he is more exposed than any vate truth-tellers. This is their devil's bargain. But for the writer, interview- president in history. ing such Janus-faced sources creates a dilemma, for it requires depending Many of the people in the White House who helped me during the on people who lie to also tell the truth—and who might later disavow the writing ofFire andFury are now outside of the administration, yet they are truth they have told. Indeed, the extraordinary nature of much of what as engaged as ever by the Trump saga. I am grateful to be part of this sub- has happened in the Trump White House is often baldly denied by its stantial network Many of Trump's pre-White House cronies continue to spokespeople, as well as by the president himself. Yet in each successive both listen to him and support him; at the same time, as an expression both account of this administration, the level of its preposterousness—even as of their concern and of their incredulity, they report among one another, that bar has been consistently raised—has almost invariably been con- and to others as well, on his temper, mood, and impulses. In general, I firmed. have found that the closer people are to him, the more alarmed they have In an atmosphere that promotes, and frequently demands, hyperbole, found themselves at various points about his mental state. They all spec- tone itself becomes a key part of accuracy. For instance, most crucially, ulate about how this will end—badly for him, they almost all conclude. the president, by a wide range of the people in close contact with him, is Indeed, Trump is probably a much better subject for writers interested in often described in maximal terms of mental instability. "I have never met human capacities and failings than for most of the reporters and writers anyone crazier than Donald Trump" is the wording of one staff member who regularly cover Washington and who are primarily interested in the who has spent almost countless hours with the president. Something like pursuit of success and power. this has been expressed to me by a dozen others with firsthand experience. My primary goal in Siege is to create a readable and intuitive narrative— How do you translate that into a responsible evaluation of this singular that is its nature. Another goal is to write the near equivalent of a real-time White House? My strategy is to try to show and not tell, to describe the history of this extraordinary moment, since understanding it well after broadest context, to communicate the experience, to make it real enough the fact might be too late. A final goal is pure portraiture: Donald Trump for a reader to evaluate for him- or herself where Donald Trump falls on a as an extreme, almost hallucinatory, and certainly cautionary, Amer- vertiginous sliding scale of human behavior. It is that condition, an emo- ican character. To accomplish this, to gain the perspective and to find tional state rather than a political state, that is at the heart of this book. EFTA00316515  1 BULLSEYE T he president made his familiar stink-in-the-room face, then way his hands as though to ward off a bug. "Don't tell me this; he said. "Why are you telling me this?" His personal lawyer John Dowd, in late February 2018, little mo than a year into Trump's tenure, was trying to explain that prosecutc were likely to issue a subpoena for some of the Trump Organizatio: business records. Trump seemed to respond less to the implications of such a deep di into his affairs than to having to hear about it at all. His annoyance set i a small rant. It was not so much about people out to get him—and pe ple were surely out to get him—but that nobody was defending him. T problem was his own people. Especially his lawyers. Trump wanted his lawyers to "fix" things. "Don't bring me problen bring me solutions; was a favorite CEO bromide that he often repeate He judged his lawyers by their under-the-table or sleight-of-hand ski and held them accountable when they could not make problems disa pear. His problems became their fault. "Make it go away" was one of t frequent orders. It was often said in triplicate: "Make it go away, make go away, make it go away" The White House counsel Don McGahn—representing the Whi EFTA00316516 2 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE House rather than, in a distinction Trump could never firmly grasp, the issues that would immediately need to be addressed if he were to to president himself—demonstrated little ability to make problems disap- on the case. Trump refused to consider any of them. More than a doz pear and became a constant brunt of Trump's rages and invective. His legal major firms had turned down his business. In the end, Trump was left wi interpretation of proper executive branch function too often thwarted his a ragtag group of solo practitioners without the heft and resources of I boss's wishes. firms. Now, thirteen months after his inauguration, he was facing p Dowd and his colleagues, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow—the trio of law- sonal legal trouble at least as great as that faced by Richard Nixon and E yers charged with navigating the president through his personal legal Clinton, and doing so with what seemed like, at best, a Court Street lei problems—had, on the other hand, become highly skilled in avoiding team. But Trump appeared to be oblivious to this exposed flank. Ratch' their client's bad humor, which was often accompanied by menacing, ing up his level of denial about the legal threats around him, he breez barely controlled personal attacks. All three men understood that to be a rationalized: "If I had good lawyers, took guilty" successful lawyer for Donald Trump was to tell the client what he wanted Dowd, at seventy-seven, had had a long, successful legal career, be to hear. in government and in Washington law firms. But that was in the past. Trump harbored a myth about the ideal lawyer that had almost noth- was on his own now, eager to postpone retirement. He knew the imp( ing to do with the practice of law. He invariably cited Roy Cohn, his old tance, certainly to his own position in Trump's legal circle, of und. New York friend, attorney, and tough-guy mentor, and Robert Kennedy. standing his client's needs. He was forced to agree with the presider John F. Kennedy's brother. "He was always on my ass about Roy Cohn assessment of the investigation into his campaign's contact with Russi and Bobby Kennedy," said Steve Bannon, the political strategist who, state interests: it would not reach him. To that end, Dowd, and the ott perhaps more than anyone else, was responsible for Trump's victory. members of Trump's legal team, recommended that the president coc "'Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy; he would say. 'Where's my Roy Cohn erate with the Mueller investigation. and Bobby Kennedy?'" Cohn, to his own benefit and legend, built the "Sot a target, right?" Trump constantly prodded them. myth that Trump continued to embrace: with enough juice and mus- This wasn't a rhetorical question. He insisted on an answer, and cle, the legal system could always be gamed. Bobby Kennedy had been affirmative one: "Mr. President, you're not a target?' Early in his tenu his brother's attorney general and hatchet man; he protected JFK and Trump had pushed FBI director James Comey to provide precisely tl worked the back channels of power for the benefit of the family. reassurance. In one of the signature moves of his presidency, he had fir This was the constant Trump theme: beating the system. "the guy Comey in May 2017 in part because he wasn't satisfied with the enth who gets away with it," he had often bragged to friends in New York. siasm of the affirmation and therefore assumed Comey was plotti At the same time, he did not want to know details. He merely wanted against him. his lawyers to assure him that he was winning. 'We're killing it, right? Whether the president was indeed a target—and it would surely he That's what I want to know. That's all I want to know. If we're not killing taken a through-the-looking-glass exercise not to see him as the bullsc it, you screwed up," he shouted one afternoon at members of his ad hoc of the Mueller investigation—seemed to occupy a separate reality IN legal staff. Trump's need to be reassured that he was not a target. From the start, it had become a particular challenge to find top law- "Trump's trained me;' Ty Cobb told Steve Bannon. "Even if it's bi yers to take on what, in the past, had always been one of the most vaunted it's great!" of legal assignments: representing the president of the United States. One Trump imagined—indeed, with a preternatural confidence, nothi high-profile Washington white-collar litigator gave Trump a list of twenty appeared to dissuade him—that sometime in the very near future he wot EFTA00316517 4 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE hear directly from the special counsel, who would send him a compre- after the FBI had first raised questions about National Security Ad. hensive and even apologetic letter of exoneration. Michael Flynn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had walked into Steve I "Where he kept demanding to know, "is my fucking letter?" non's office and said, "going to do you a big favor. Give me your a card. Don't ask me why, just give it to me. You'll be thanking me for rest of your life:" The grand jury empanelled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller met on Bannon opened his wallet and gave Priebus his American ExI Thursdays and Fridays in federal district court in Washington. Its busi- card. Priebus shortly returned, handed the card back, and said, "You ness was conducted on the fifth floor of an unremarkable building at 333 have legal insurance Constitution Avenue. The grand jurors gathered in a nondescript space Over the next year, Bannon—a witness of fact—spent hundrec that looked less like a courtroom than a classroom, with prosecutors at a hours with his lawyers preparing for his testimony before the sp podium and witnesses sitting at a desk in the front of the room. The Mueller counsel and before Congress. His lawyers in turn spent ever moun grand jurors were more female than male, more white than black, older hours talking to Mueller's team and to congressional committee coun rather than younger; they were distinguished most of all by their focus Bannon's legal costs at the end of the year came to $2 million. and intensity. They listened to the proceedings with "a scary sort of atten- Every lawyer's first piece of advice to his or her client was blunt tion, as though they already know everything," said one witness. unequivocal: talk to no one, lest it become necessary to testify about In a grand jury inquiry, you fall into one of three categories. You are you said. Before long, a constant preoccupation of senior staffers in a "witness of fact," meaning the prosecutor believes you have information Trump White House was to know as little as possible. It was a wn about an investigation at hand. Or you are a "subject," meaning you are side-up world: where being "in the room" was traditionally the r regarded as having personal involvement with the crime under investiga- sought-after status, now you wanted to stay out of meetings. You wa tion. Or, most worrisome, you are a "target,' meaning the prosecutor is to avoid being a witness to conversations; you wanted to avoid b seeking to have the grand jury indict you. Witnesses often became sub- witnessed being a witness to conversations, at least if you were sn jects, and subjects often became targets. Certainly, nobody was your friend. It was impossible to know whc In early 2018, with the Mueller investigation and its grand jury main- colleague stood in the investigation; hence, you had no way of knot taining a historic level of secrecy, no one in the White House could be sure how likely it was that they might need to offer testimony about some who was what. Or who was saying what to whom. Anyone and everyone else—you, perhaps—as the bargaining chip to save themselves by a working for the president or one of his senior aides could be talking to the crating with the special counsel, a.k.a. flipping. special counsel. The investigation's code of silence extended into the West The White House, it rapidly dawned on almost everyone who wo: Wing. Nobody knew, and nobody was saying, who was spilling the beans. there—even as it became one more reason not to work there—was Almost every White House senior staffer—the collection of advisers scene of an ongoing criminal investigation, one that could potent who had firsthand dealings with the president—had retained a lawyer. ensnare anyone who was anywhere near it. Indeed, from the president's first days in the White House, Trump's tangled » * * legal past and evident lack of legal concern had cast a shadow on those who worked for him. Senior people were looking for lawyers even as they The ultimate keeper of the secrets from the campaign, the transition, were still learning how to navigate the rabbit warren that is the West Wing. through the first year in the White House was Hope Hicks, the 14, In February 2017, mere weeks after the inauguration, and not ►ong House communications director. She had witnessed most everyth EFTA00316518  6 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE 7 She saw what the president saw: she knew what the president, a man she acted as his de facto chief of staff. Trump did not want his administra- unable to control his own running monologue, knew. tion to be staffed by professionals; he wanted it to be staffed by people who On February 27, 2018, testifying before the House Intelligence attended and catered to him. Committee—she had already appeared before the special counsel—she Hicks—"Hope-y," to Trump—was both the president's gatekeeper was pressed about whether she had ever lied for the president. Perhaps a and his comfort blanket. She was also a frequent subject of his pruri- more accomplished communications professional could have escaped the ent interest: Trump preferred business, even in the White House, to be corner here, but Hicks, who had scant experience other than working as personal. "Who's fucking Hope?" he would demand to know. The topic Donald Trump's spokesperson, which, as often as not, meant dealing with also interested his son Don Jr., who often professed his intention to "fuck his disregard of empirical truth, found herself as though in a sudden and Hope The president's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, unexpected moral void trying to publicly parse the relative importance both White House senior advisers, expressed a gentler type of concern for of her boss's lies. She admitted to telling "white lies: as in, somehow, less Hicks; sometimes they would even try to suggest eligible men. than the biggest lies. This was enough of a forward admission to require But Hicks, seeming to understand the insular nature of Trumpworld, a nearly twenty-minute mid-testimony conference with her lawyers, dis- dated exclusively inside the bubble, picking the baddest boys in it: cam- tressed by what she might be admitting and by where any deconstruction paign manager Corey Lewandowski during the campaign and presiden- of the president's constant inversions might lead. tial aide Rob Porter in the White House. As the relationship between Not long after she testified, another witness before the Mueller grand Hicks and Porter unfolded in the fall of 2017, knowing about the affair jury was asked how far Hicks might go to lie for the president. The witness became an emblem of Trump insiderness, with special care taken to keep answered: "I think when it comes to doing anything as a `yes man for this development from the proprietary president. Or not: other people, Trump, she'll do it—but she won't take a bullet for him." The statement assuming that Porter's involvement with Hicks would not at all please could be taken as both a backhanded compliment and an estimate of how Trump, were less than discreet about it. far loyalty in the Trump White House might extend—probably not too far. Almost no one in Trump's administration, it could be argued, was con- ventionally suited to his or her job. But with the possible exception of the In the heightened enmity of the Trump White House, Rob Porter may have president himself, no one provided a better illustration of this unprepared succeeded in becoming the most disliked person by everyone except per- and uninformed presidency than Hicks. She did not have substantial media haps the president himself. A square-jawed, 1950s-looking guy who could or political experience, nor did she have a temperament annealed by years have been a model for Brylcreem, he was almost a laughable figure of of high-pressure work. Always dressed in the short skirts that Trump betrayal and perfidy: if he hadn't stabbed you in the back, you would be favored, she seemed invariably caught in the headlights. Trump admired forced to acknowledge how unworthy he considered you to be. A sitcom her not because she had the political skills to protect him, but for her pliant sort of suck-up—"Eddie Haskell," cracked Bannon, citing the early televi- dutifulness. Her job was to devote herself to his care and feeding. sion icon of insincerity and brownnosing featured in Leave It to Beaver—he "When you speak to him, open with positive feedback," counseled embraced Chief of Staff John Kelly, while at the same time poisoning him Hicks, understanding Trump's need for constant affirmation and his with the president. Porter's estimation of his own high responsibilities in almost complete inability to talk about anything but himself. Her atten- the White House, together with the senior-most jobs that the president, tiveness to 'frump and tractable nature had elevated her, at age twenty-nine, he let it be known, was promising him, seemed to put the administration to the top White House communications job. And practically speaking, and the nation squarely on his shoulders. EFTA00316519 8 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE %IP Porter had, before the age of forty, two bitter ex-wives, at least one informed the media that she had filed an emergency protective ore of whom he had beaten, and both of whom he had cheated on at talk- against him. of-the-town levels. During a stint as a Senate staffer, the married Porter The White House, or at least Kelly—and likely Hicks—had been awi had an affair with an intern, costing him his job. His girlfriend Samantha of many of these claims and, effectively, covered them up. ("You usua Dravis had moved in with Porter in the summer of 2017, while, quite have enough competent people for White House positions to weed out t unbeknownst to her, he was seeing Hicks. "I cheated on you because you're wife beaters, but you couldn't be so choosy in the Trump White House,' not attractive enough; he later told Dravis. one Republican acquaintance of Porter's.) The furor that erupted arou In a potentially criminal break of protocol, Porter had gained access Porter and his troubling gross-guy history not only annoyed Trump to his raw FBI clearance reports and seen the statements of his ex-wives. "He stinks of bad press"—it further weakened Kelly. On February 7, of His most recent ex-wife had also written a blog about his alleged abuse, both of his former wives gave interviews to CNN, Porter resigned. which, while it did not name him, clearly fingered him. Concerned about A publicity-shy Hicks—Donald Trump put a high value on associa the damaging impact his former wives could have on his security review, who did not steal his press opportunities—suddenly found her love I he recruited Dravis to help him smooth his relationship with both women. in the glare of intense international press scrutiny. Her affair with the d Lewandowski, Hicks's former boyfriend, caught wind of the Hicks- credited Porter highlighted her own odd relationship with the preside Porter relationship and began working to expose it; by some reports, and his family, as well as the haphazard management, interpersonal d: he got paparazzi to follow Hicks. Though Porter's history of abuse was functions, and general lack of political savvy in the Trump court. slowly making its way to the surface as a result of the FBI investigation, * * * the Lewandowski campaign against Hicks cut through many other efforts to cover up Porter's transgressions. The affair was, curiously, among the least of Hicks's problems. Indeed, I Dravis, in the autumn of 2017, heard the Lewandowski-pushed Hicks the Porter scandal became perhaps a better cloud under which rumors of the Hicks-Porter relationship. After finding Hicks's number leave the administration than what almost everybody in the West Wi listed under a man's name in Porter's contacts, Dravis confronted Porter, assumed was the real cloud. who promptly threw her out. Moving back in with her parents, she began On February 27, a reporter at the Washington insider newsletter Axi her own revenge campaign, openly talking about Porter's security clear- Jonathan Swan, a favorite conduit for White House leaks, reported tl ance issues, including to people inside the White House counsel's office, Josh Raffel was leaving the White House. In a novel arrangement, Rai saying he had protection at the highest levels in the White House. Then, had come into the White House in April 2017 as the exclusive spokespers along with Lewandowski, Dravis helped leak the details of the Hicks- for the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his wife, Ivanka, bypa Porter romance to the Daily Mail, which published a story about it on ing the White House communications team. Raffel, who, like Kushn February 1. was a Democrat, had worked for Hiltzik Strategies, the New York Pub But Dravis, joined by Porter's former wives, decided that, outra- relations firm that represented ivanka's clothing line. geously, he had come out looking good in the Daily Mail account—he Hope Hicks, who had also worked for the Hiltzik firm—perhaps b was part of a glam power couple! Porter called Dravis to taunt her: "You known for having long represented the film producer Harvey Weinste thought you could get me!" Dravis and his former wives all then publicly caught, in the fall of 2017, in an epochal harassment and abuse scam revealed their abuse at his hand. His first wife said he kicked and punched and cover-up—had originally had the same role as Raffel but at a higl her; she even produced a photograph of her black eye. His second wife level: she was the personal spokesperson for the president. In Septemb EFTA00316520 10 ?MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE Hicks had been elevated to White House communications director, with unlimited resources. The more a determined team of G-men sifts, stril Raffel as her number two. and inspects, the greater the chance that both methodical and cast The trouble had arisen the previous summer. Both Hicks and Raffel crimes will be revealed. The more comprehensive the search, the me had been on Air Force One in July 2017 as the news broke about Donald inevitable the outcome. The case of Donald Trump—with his history Trump Jr.'s meeting in Trump Tower during the campaign with Russian bankruptcies, financial legerdemain, dubious associations, and gene) government go-betweens offering dirt on Hillary Clinton. During the sense of impunity—certainly seemed to offer prosecutors something flight back to the United States after the G20 summit in Germany, Hicks an embarrassment of riches. and Raffel aided the president in his efforts to issue a largely false story For his part, however, Donald Trump yet seemed to believe that 1 about the Trump Tower meeting, thus becoming part of the cover-up. skills and instincts were at least a match for all the thoroughness as Even though Raffel had been at the White House for a little more than resources of the United States Department of Justice. He even believ nine months, the Axios report said that his departure had been under dis- their exhaustive approach would work in his favor. 'Boring. Confusi cussion for several months. That was untrue. It was an abrupt exit. for everybody:' he said, dismissing the reports of the investigation pi The next day, just as abruptly, Hope Hicks—the person in the White vided by Dowd and others. "You can't follow any of this. No hook." House closest to the president—resigned as well. One of the many odd aspects of Trump's presidency was that The one person who perhaps knew more than anyone else about the did not see being president, either the responsibilities or the exposu workings of the Trump campaign and the Trump White House was sud- as being all that different from his pre-presidential life. He had endur denly out the door. The profound concern inside the White House was almost countless investigations in his long career. He had been involv the reasonable supposition that Hicks and Raffel, both witnesses to and in various kinds of litigation for the better part of forty-five years. Het, participants in the president's efforts to cover up the details of his son and a fighter who, with brazenness and aggression, got out of fixes that wot son-in-law's meeting with the Russians, were subjects or targets of the have ruined a weaker, less wily player. That was his essential busing Mueller investigation—or, worse, had already cut a deal. strategy: what doesn't kill me strengthens me. Though he was wound The president, effusive in his public praise for Hicks, did not try to again and again, he never bled out. talk her out of leaving. In the weeks to come he would mope about her "It's playing the game," he explained in one of his frequent mor absence—"Where's my Hope-y?"--but, in fact, as soon as he got wind logues about his own superiority and everyone else's stupidity. is go that she might be talking, he wanted to cut her loose and began, in a at the game. Maybe. the best. Really, I could be the best. I think I significant rewrite, downgrading her status and importance on the cam- the best. very good. Very cool. Most people are afraid that the wo paign and in the White House. might happen. But it doesn't, unless you're stupid. And. not stupid.' Yet here, from Trump's point of view, was a hopeful point about Hicks: In the weeks after his first anniversary in office, with the Muel as central as she was to his presidency, her duties really only consisted of investigation in its eighth month, Trump continued to regard the si pleasing him. She was an unlikely agent of grand strategy and great con- cial counsel's inquiry as a contest of wills. He did not see it as a war spiracies. Trump's team was made up of only bit players. attrition—a gradual reduction of the strength and credibility of the t get through sustained scrutiny and increasing pressure. Instead, he sat • * * situation to confront, a spurious government undertaking that was v John Dowd may have been reluctant to give his client bad news, but nerable to his attacks. He was confident he could jawbone this "wit he well understood the danger of a thorough prosecutor with virtually hunt"—often tweeted in all-caps—to at least a partisan draw. EFTA00316521  SIEGE 12 12 MICHAEL WOLFF Many in the Trump circle agreed with their boss: they believed tha He remained irritated by efforts to persuade him to play the game in whatever idiotic moves had been made by idiotic Trump hands, the Rus the usual Washington way —mounting a disciplined legal defense, negoti- sia investigation was too abstruse and nickel-and-dime to ultimately stick ating, trying to cut his losses—rather than his way. This was disconcerting At the same time, many, and perhaps all, were privately convinced tha to many of the people closest to him, but it alarmed them more to see that a deep dive—or, for that matter, even a cursory inspection—of Trump' as Trump's indignation and sense of personal insult rose, so did his belief financial past would yield a trove of overt offenses, and likely a pattern o in his own innocence. career corruption. It was hardly surprising, then, that ever since the beginning of th special counsel's investigation, Trump had tried to draw a line in the sang By the end of February, in addition to the Mueller grand jury indictments between Mueller and Trump family finances, openly threatening Muelle of a group of Russian nationals for illegal activities involved with efforts if he went there. Trump's operating assumption remained that the speck- by the Russian government to influence the U.S. election, Mueller had counsel was afraid of him, conscious of where and how his tolerant reached several levels into the Trump circle. Among those who were might end. Trump was confident that the Mueller team could be made t indicted or who had pled guilty to felonies were his former campaign man- understand its limits, by either wink-wink or unsubtle threat. ager Paul Manafort, his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, "They know they can't get me," he told one member of his cirri the eager-beaver junior adviser George Papadopoulos, and Manafort's of after-dinner callers, "because I was never involved.. not a targe business partner and campaign official Rick Gates. This series of legal There's nothing.. not a target. They've told me. not a target. An moves could be classically read as a methodical, step-by-step approach to they know what would happen if they made me a target. Everybod the president's door. Or, from the Trump camp's point of view, it could be understands everybody." seen as a roundup of the sorts of opportunists and hangers-on who had always trailed Trump. * * * The doubts about the usefulness of Trump's hangers-on was an implicit Books and newspaper stories about Trump's forty-five years in busint part of their usefulness: they could be shrugged off and disavowed at any were full of his shady dealings, and his arrival in the White House on time, which is what promptly happened at the least sign of trouble. The helped to highlight them and surface even juicier ones. Real estate w; Trumpers swept up by Mueller were all declared wannabe and marginal the world's favorite money-laundering currency, and Trump's B-level re players. The president had never met them, could not remember them, or estate business—relentlessly marketed by Trump as triple A—was qui had a limited acquaintance with them. "I know Mr. Manafort—I haven't explicitly designed to appeal to money launderers. What's more, Truml spoken to him in a long time, but I know him: declared a dismissive own financial woes, and desperate efforts to maintain his billionaire lib Trump, pulling a line from the "who dat?" page of his playbook. style, cachet, and market viability, forced him into constant and unsubt The difficulty in proving a conspiracy is proving intent. Many of the schemes. In the high irony department, Jared Kushner, when he was president's inner circle believed that Trump, and the Trump Organiza- law school, and before he met Ivanka, identified, in a paper he wrot tion, and by extension the Trump campaign, operated in such a diffuse, possible claims of fraud against the Trump Organization in a particul haphazard, gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight manner that intent would real estate deal he was studying—a subject now of quite some amuseme be very difficult to establish. What's more, the Trump hangers-on were among his acquaintances at the time. Practically speaking, Trump hid so demonstrably subpar players that stupidity could well be a reasonable plain sight, as the prosecutors appeared to be finding. defense against intent. EFTA00316522 14 MICHAEL WOLFF SIEGE 15 In November 2004, for instance, Jeffrey Epstein, the financier later in fact, never moved into the house. Trump had, miraculously, earned caught in a scandal involving underage prostitutes, agreed to purchase $55 million without putting up a dime. Or, more likely, Trump merely from bankruptcy a house in Palm Beach, Florida, for $36 million, a prop- earned a fee for hiding the real owner—a shadow owner quite possibly erty that had been on the market for two years. Epstein and Trump had being funneled cash by Rybolovlev for other reasons beyond the value been close friends—playboys in arms, as it were—for more than a decade, of the house. Or, possibly, the real owner and real buyer were one and with Trump often seeking Epstein's help with his chaotic financial affairs. the same. Rybolovlev might have, in effect, paid himself for the house, Soon after negotiating the deal for the house in Palm Beach, Epstein took thereby cleansing the additional $55 million for the second purchase Trump to see it, looking for advice on construction issues involved with of the house. moving the swimming pool. But as he prepared to finalize his purchase This was Donald Trump's world of real estate. for the house, Epstein discovered that Trump, who was severely cash- • * • constrained at the time, had bid $41 million for the property and bought it out from under Epstein through an entity called Trump Properties As though using mind-control tricks, Jared Kushner had become highly LLC, entirely financed by Deutsche Bank, which was already carrying a skilled at containing his deep frustration with his father-in-law. He stayed substantial number of troubled loans to the Trump Organization and to expressionless—sometimes he seemed almost immobile—when Trump Trump personally. went off the rails, unleashing tantrums or proposing dopey political or Trump, Epstein knew, had been loaning out his name in real estate policy moves. Kushner, a courtier in a crazy court, was possessed of an deals—that is, for an ample fee, Trump would serve as a front man to eerie calmness and composure. He was also very worried. It seemed disguise the actual ownership in a real estate transaction. (This was, in astounding and ludicrous that this fig-leaf technicality—"You're not a a sense, another variation of Trump's basic business model of licensing target, Mr. President"—could offer his father-in-law such comfort. his name for commercial properties owned by someone else.) A furi- Kushner understood that Trump was surrounded by a set of mortal ous Epstein, certain that Trump was merely fronting for the real owners, arrows, any of which might kill him: the case for obstruction; the case threatened to expose the deal, which was getting extensive coverage in for collusion; any close look at his long, dubious financial history; the Florida papers. The fight became all the more bitter when, not long after always-lurking issues with women; the prospects of a midterm rout and the purchase, Trump put the house on the market for $125 million. the impeachment threat if the midterm elections went against them; the But if Epstein knew some of Trump's secrets, Trump knew some of fickleness of the Republicans, who might at any time turn on him; and the Epstein's. Trump often saw the financier at Epstein's current Palm Beach senior staffers who had been pushed out of the administration (Kushner house, and Trump knew that Epstein was visited almost every day, and had urged the ouster of many of them), any of whom might testify against had been for many years, by girls III hired to give him massages that him. In March alone, Gary Cohn, the president's chief economic adviser, often had happy endings—girls recruited from local restaurants, strip clubs, Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, and Andrew McCabe, the deputy and, also, Trump's own Mar-a-Lago. Just as the enmity between the two director of the FBI—each man bearing the president deep contempt— friends increased over the house purchase, Epstein found himself under were pushed from the administration. investigation by the Palm Beach police. And as Epstein's legal prob- But the president was in no mood to hear Kushner's counsel